T'was a Dark and Rainy Day

Steve Jobs: I've never really been an Apple person. I always favored PCs and the rampant fanboyism for i-Products is something I've long found annoyance in. That said, I had to respect the man and all he contributed and accomplished.

It's been a dark and dreary week here. Clouds and rain have conspired with the waning morning light to make it very difficult to get out of bed in the morning, and the busy days at work (and continuing rainy weather) have been leaving me with little drive to stay up in the evening. I'm not especially looking forward to winter.


So last night we finished a short-campaign/adventure of supernatural Westernness using the Unisystem Ghosts of Albion rules. It was run with someone who I would call more an idea person than an implementation person - which is to say there were a lot of elements and scenes that probably looked cooler in his head than they felt when played out. So, story-wise it was okay - the PCs came together and, mostly at the behest of local ghosts, deal with a local undertaker/mine owner who had found an evil artifact and was using undead as cheap labor among other things. Mechanics-wise, the rules (and situations) largely seemed to favor characters with a focus in spellcasting. Though higher-power spells accumulate casting penalties, they were just so much more effective than pumping lead into the liven dead.

It appears our next game will probably be a revamp/return to an old modern supernatural campaign. The GM wants to 1) revisit the unfinished story and 2) give the Dresden Files rules more of a try - so we're looking at converting characters. The campaign fits well enough dropped into the Dresden world.

For some characters, this strikes me as a loss. Our resident badass, car-throwing, disembowlment-surviving, weretigress is sooo much more deadly and dangerous in my mind than the Inhuman-level strength/recovery that can be practically afforded even at a fairly generous 10-Refresh starting level.

On the other hand, I think my character will sort of improve overall. He was good at one thing - casting out of his repertoire of about eight low-ranked spells. He had a passable dodge skill and... that's about it. Even with the "super sacred spiffy" knife he had, his skill was all of 1. The pyramid setup of skills in Dresden Files will pretty much guarantee he's decent at more than one thing. Instead of a handful of spells, he'll technically have access to full Evocation with the starting three elements at least. He'll probably also gain full Thaumaturgy. And while you can sink endless points into Unisystem essence channeling, the "full" versions of magic in Dresden Files add up to -6 Refresh (-7 with Sight) and come with perks like foci. Even if his effects may not seem as impressive as a "7-point, instant-cast Soulfire at +9," the rules are going to grant him a much broader level of ability in skills and magic.

It's interesting to see how different RPG systems do things.

The hard part will actually be summarizing the background phases and corresponding Aspects. Thankfully, we do have 30-40 previous play sessions to use as a basis. And that has me thinking back over what he's been through and... it's a mess. My character came in a little late, though perhaps about the time things were getting "real." A college student with some self-taught magical talent, he stumbled across the other PCs as events were leading up to his ex-girlfriend being outed as a fated oracle - who was chased, captured (I believe), blinded, and went all mystical/spirity. While he started helping for her sake, he soon felt buried way over his head in the plot of evil Atlantean gods trying to return and take over the world. Pretty much every conflict we saw, he felt out of his depth... even though he started as a decent mage and got better from there.

In seeking the aid of the fire spirit of Mt. St. Helens, he ended up in some sort of historical/spirit world where he... seems to have developed a relationship with said fire spirit's daughter... even though he consciously remembers next to nothing about that journey which probably took months (and potentially a lot more) in subjective time for him. That whole "I think I may be in love with a spirit, but can't for the life of me remember what we experienced together" is incredibly screwed up all on its own.

Then there was the trip to an island town infected by some sort of magical plague that make people into zombies, more or less. That was a couple days of pure running on adrenaline and surviving by the skin of his teeth. I'm not sure I ever conveyed during play just how desperate that whole situation felt from his perspective. Even after being told the island would be unable to host life for years afterward, I don't think he holds any regret for calling in mama firebird to raze the place.

And he's always felt a little bit of an outsider, even among the PCs. The other two regulars were the weretigress who, from his eyes, usually seemed in control of her surroundings. Though violent and perhaps not looking toward the greater good, she was so vehemently opposed to the rising gods' on a personal level that there was never any question as to her motivation. The other regular player was a spiritual goth girl granted visions and holy-ish powers, mostly by native spirits/gods who seem to act as patron to her. In that sense, she seemed to be a "good guy" by quasi-divine purpose.

I know there's perception bias here. We all know our own characters better than those of others. Mine... was just trying to get through college when all hell broke loose in his life. He is basically a good guy, starting out wanting to help the oracle even though she was his ex-girlfriend. After standing by the other PCs in some life-and-death struggles, well, he considers them friends and doesn't want to abandon them. From there on out, his motivation has largely been survival and just getting through each day. While thoughts of the rising gods of beasts and death aren't pretty, there was a point he did consider throwing in with the other side because it looked like they might be the winners and he just wanted to get on with his life. That bridge is pretty well burned, but he just isn't resolved to this shadow war on a higher level or with a greater purpose - not that his focus on personal survival is pure selfish whim so much as that's all he has had time to handle.

And somehow, I have to boil all that down to a few snappy phrases that can be invoked and compelled.